The present invention relates to railway monitoring systems.
Railway monitoring systems monitor degradation of train tracks and other railway assets and detect the presence of impedances of rail rights-of-way. These systems are often designed to be operated at stationary positions along the railway or onboard rail-modified vehicles and commercial equipment (e.g., “hi-rail” and “road rail” vehicles). Specially trained crews are required to operate the vehicles, perform visual inspections, take photographs, and operate stationary light detection and ranging (LiDAR) equipment for monitoring sections of the railway. As such, these systems are costly to operate, interrupt normal rail service, pose safety risks, and require significant analysis and/or data processing, which delays corrective action and maintenance.
Recently, automated rail monitoring systems that operate onboard moving trains on normal scheduled routes have been designed. These systems typically include specialized sensors mounted to the rail and communication equipment mounted on a rail car that can relay information via radio to a railway operator. These systems are cost-prohibitive due to the number of sensors required, the labor required in installing the sensors, and the maintenance required to keep the sensors in working condition. Thus, automated rail monitoring systems are only used on a small percentage of railways.
Photography based rail monitoring systems that do not require the installation of fixed sensors are available. However, the large amount of data required to transmit and store photographs is inefficient and requires substantial post-processing. This again delays corrective action and maintenance.